By Chris Williams: You can only ignore what the boing public want for so long before they turn their backs on you and look elsewhere for their entertainment. Bob Arum of Top Rank already served up a poor pay per view fight in the last appearance from his fighter Manny Pacquiao by matching him against another Top Rank fighter Joshua Clottey last March.

Pacquiao, riding the crest of three consecutive PPV successes against Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto, was able to get 700,000 boxing fans that were willing to purchase the fight on PPV against the obscure Clottey. Few fans were happy with the opponent and the fight itself, which as it turned out, was one of the most boring Pacquiao fights in memory.

Arum then tried to put together a fight between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr., with no success. Now, instead of making the best of the situation by choosing someone that boxing fans want to see fight Pacquiao like Andre Berto, Shane Mosley, Paul Williams, Sergio Martinez, Timothy Bradley or Devon Alexander, Arum has decided on putting Pacquiao in with another one of his Top Rank fighters Antonio Margarito, who doesn’t even having a boxing license to fight in the United States.

Margarito isn’t popular with the knowledgeable boxing fans of the sports, and many of the casual fans don’t have any idea who he is. In other words, this is looking like another Pacquiao vs. Clottey fight in terms of PPV buys. However, I think it may end up falling even short of that mark. At the time Pacquiao fought Clottey, Manny was still receiving the benefit of having fought De La Hoya, Hatton and Cotto in consecutive fights.

The Clottey fight was a real turn off, as it didn’t bring excitement and it still cost around $50 to watch. It wasn’t a good fight for PPV, needless to say. It was a fight that was perfect for regular cable, but not PPV. Now, after having given a fight that few people wanted to see with Pacquiao and Clottey, Arum is going to again match Pacquiao up against an opponent that few people want to see with Margarito.

This would be the second time in a row that Arum will be matching Pacquiao up against fighters that the larger boxing public doesn’t care to see. Providing entertainment is like anything. If you give bad service the first time, it has an effect of turning away customers so that they’re less likely to come back for a second time.

And if you give them bad service twice in a row, in many cases you’ve lost that customer for life. It’s like giving bad service in a restaurant. You often don’t get a second chance to make it up to the customer. I think Arum is making a huge mistake in putting Pacquiao in with Margarito after the Clottey fight.

Instead, Arum should making it up to the fans by matching Pacquiao up with the very best fighter he can get, even if they aren’t one of Arum’s fighters in his Top Rank stable. I think by matching Pacquiao up against fighters that fans don’t want to see, Arum is weakening his product, who in this case, is Pacquiao.

My guess is the Pacquiao-Margarito fight will do no better than 400,000 PPV buys, with virtually all of that coming from Pacquiao’s loyal stateside Filipino fans. I just don’t think there are enough of them to make this fight a success in terms of PPV.

If Arum is okay with mediocre numbers, then more power to him. But I think it’s not exactly the best thing to do if you want to increase the value of Pacquiao and help put him in a good position at the bargaining table for a future fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

If Pacquiao ends up with numbers similar or lower than his PPV numbers in the Clottey fight, it’s going to be almost impossible for Arum to justify Pacquiao asking for a 50-50 deal with Mayweather, when he’s bringing in 1.4 million PPV buys. It’s about giving the people want they want. You can’t scrimp and give them a product they don’t want to see. Oh sure, you can do that, but you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot by doing it.